The Big Picture Upgrade

Two years, and still adaptable

This week we wanted to highlight a job we did a few years ago. It may be unusual to highlight an old job, but rather than share “old news” we wanted to talk about how building for the future can help avoid unforeseen circumstances. Such as a pandemic. To begin our study of this past install, we must start in present day.  
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With COVID-19 shutting down large gatherings Austin Bluffs Evangelical Free Church (ABEF) had to move fast to keep their communities connected virtually. They knew they had the capability, they just needed to be pointed in the right direction of how to make it physically happen. As ABEF’s audiovisual integrator, Lambda was able to make that happen quickly, with virtually no change.

About 2 years ago we did a series of upgrades for ABEF in Colorado Springs. These upgrades were designed to replace aging infrastructure and pave the way for new quality and abilities in their building. We focused on 2 systems for them: A video recording system and an audio console system.  
The video system was built specifically to record sermons for posting to their website or social media later. The system included an ATEM TV Studio HD switcher, a Datavideo PTZ camera and a few block Marshall cameras around the room. 
We have used this build design a lot as our go to budget system. It is simple and dependable.

The main camera was the Datavideo PTZ camera. With a moving controllable camera, the ABEF team was able to have the ability to have a closeup follow shot. It came at a cost lower than a tripod-based camera and required one less volunteer operator. The Marshall block cameras added additional angles for their director to choose various shots and helped reduce the need for being perfect with camera movements. With only one moving camera and a few other static wider camera shots it provides the opportunity to cut away when you don’t have a good shot and instead focus on moving only one camera instead of 3. 

Additionally, for the video system, we included a recorder from Datavideo. This records to a USB thumb drive and has the added ability to stream. Jon Gilmore of ABEF requested the ability to stream, but knew the church was not really ready to activate it at the time. At Lambda we love when teams request advanced capabilities but take a staged approach to implementing them. We love to help you prepare for the future and get you equipment with multiple functions so you can “grow” into it. It is hard to jump into a rocket ship and fly to the moon, but it’s much easier to start out flying a small plane with a flight instructor. ABEF not only continued to record and upload for some time but were able to practice camera skills and working with graphics.  ​

For the audio console upgrade, they wanted to upgrade from an aging analog console to a digital console. ABEF took advantage of a benefit of working with Lambda as audiovisual integrators and tried out several different audio boards to see which one felt best to them. ​

They choose the M32 also noting what capabilities it could do in the future. Specifically, it could have a separate mix for the stream and ability to link in another console.  
So, then COVID-19 happened. Jon reached out to Lambda to see what needed to happen to turn the system up to its full designed capability. This ended up taking about 30mins of time between, Jon, their church network expert, and myself. We logged into the stream box and set things up specifically to the church’s Facebook page and they were off and running. Each week after, they have had little learning adjustments such as camera color, or adjusting internet speed and bandwidth, but for the most part everything went off without a hitch.  ​

It’s important to remember any change will have some adjustment, but it will always be better than starting from zero. Based on this new capability the church will be able to stream ongoing services even after large groups can gather again. This is exciting as it allows the church to reach a whole new audience going forward. The lesson here is to always be prepared for changes. In any installation reach for future capabilities even if they aren’t to be used right away. It is always a good idea to build for future abilities. At lambda, we like to build a system so that at 60% of capacity, it can do everything asked of it and still have a few tricks in its hat for you to discover.  ​